


selective transparency

by themartianwitch



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Gen, References to Child Abuse, alcohol reference, at least one (1) sex joke, reference to adult/minor relationships, reference to real-person shipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24062584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themartianwitch/pseuds/themartianwitch
Summary: "Maybe blaming any one emotion was pointless now, because the fact of the matter was this: she’d dropped her camo.Several hours later, Tommi Thompkins had uploaded to Flitter the last sixteen seconds before the crashing of her drone made the Eyespasm stream cut out, apparently at Gaby’s insistence that there was 'definitely something there.'" Post-S3.
Relationships: Kon-El | Conner Kent/M'gann M'orzz
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	selective transparency

It had been the first joint Outsiders-Team mission since several shake ups between and within the two teams. M’gann was decidedly, emphatically _not_ Team leader anymore, though Dick and Artemis had been keen to push towards having her assigned lead for the squad, and Jeff hadn’t been able to deny the mindlink made the most appropriate means of communication between public and covert operatives. Tempting as it had been to read their nudging as charitably as possible, to both them and herself, and believe they were trying to assure her she still made a fine leader despite her… mishaps… as the other remaining senior members, the two of them were prime candidates for the next Team leader, and they surely knew it. She hadn’t needed to have been linked with either of them to have caught their shared knowing glance, or the frankly _acrobatic_ tones in their voices as they twisted and turned their way out of this particular trouble.

The Outsiders themselves, or at least their _own_ remaining founding members, hadn’t been so keen on being assigned backup by the League, especially after the meddling of the “Anti-Light” in so many of their previous missions. Bedlam’s coup had been a time- and politically-sensitive joint op—this was more run-of-the-mill havoc being wrought. M’gann had understood, and affirmed that technically, as a separate unit from the League entirely, the Outsiders didn’t have to actually accept their offer to help. Forager had let out a low groan followed by a few disapproving clicks, and M’gann could see Tara start to fidget.

 _[You want me to say something?]_ Conner had sent her through their link.

_[Do **you** want to say something?]_

_[To be honest, not really. Kinda don’t want to step on the kid’s toes here.]_

_[Neither do I.]_

Gar, graciously, had conceded that a target like a national park meant the need to locate civilians quickly and cover more ground, and the fact that the squad provided had consisted of only her, Tim, and  
Traci and not a whole slew of backseat drivers seemed to have lessened the sting. Having operatives that both _wouldn’t_ and _didn’t need to_ draw attention to themselves was also a perk—the Outsiders lately had a certain expectation from the public to always make an appearance as a unit, especially in the wake of Brion’s defection, both for solidarity and suspicion’s sake.

Lex Luthor may have been ousted from the U.N., after all, but those that liked him liked him, and since then, he’d discovered Flitter.

The objectives of the mission were more or less reached. The Brain was apprehended, the animals de-collared. Yellowstone’s bison—normally only known to be aggressive after having first been pursued aggressively by tourists—are already responding to treatments to at least reverse the _anthropomorphizing_ effect of the Brain’s experiments and return them to their natural quadrupedal state, even if the scarring and muscular enhancement may remain.

> “How does a _brain_ escape from _jail_?” Gaby Gabrielli’s voice asks offscreen.
> 
> “He puts his mind to it?” Virgil quickly replies with a smirk and a point to the camera. Gar and Bart groan in unison, with Bart adding, “Arghh, he beat me to it! _Me_!”

M’gann can’t help but click the heart on the Newsgirl Legion’s Official Flitter’s post, even if it’s not the moment of glory Virgil may have wanted thanks to a laughing Cassie, on reflex, slapping him straight down out of the frame. M’gann _does_ spare him the indignity, though, of screenshotting his face at the moment Cassie’s palm makes impact with his shoulder. What Gaby, Antonia, and Tommi don’t record themselves, they repost and share on their page, making it as good a virtual scrapbook of the Outsiders as M’gann could ever hope to compile herself, though the coincidence that they had been on a senior trip to Yellowstone just as the Outsiders were needed there remains stunning. M’gann unlocks her phone to text Gar, but decides a joke about a possible mole on his team would be in bad taste so soon after Tara coming clean.

The post underneath is a still frame she will save, however, that someone else has already done her the favor of capturing from available video: Conner with his heels sliding into the dirt, arms locked around the waist of a bear at least five times his size.

 _[Can we keep it?]_ Conner had asked her over the link.

 _[Conner,]_ she’d done her best to not laugh out loud from her position in the trees _. [I really don’t think we have room in our house.]_

_[He could fit into the Bio-RV.]_

_[Uh, **one** , that’s a female bear, and even gorilla nose can smell she’s been lactating.] _Gar had quickly shifted from gorilla to elephant, though, to let a lunging cougar bounce against his side before picking it up delicately with his trunk. _[And **two** , Wolf is cool, but if Mom had ever known you guys took an animal out of its natural habitat, she **totally** would have flipped her lid.]_

The still is sweetly captioned “#bearhug,” but even the full video missed the sweetness in Conner’s mental voice as he had removed the bear’s collar, disconnecting it from the signal put out by the Brain’s transmitters to agitate it, and had still found himself dodging the swing of a hostile paw equipped with abnormally long claws.

_[Sorry, um, Mom.]_

Tim had been able to easily locate every one of the Brain’s transmitters, and the squad had worked to disable most of them, leaving several for the Outsiders to be seen wrecking themselves with the prepared explanation that those key breaks in the signal’s chain crashed the entire system. It was, at least, a behind-the-scenes pulling-of-strings negotiated on the way there, though not completely comfortably for any of them—Jaime and Traci in particular spent the whole ride avoiding eye contact and squirming in their seats, and Cassie’s arms stayed crossed as she eyed a silent Tim.

“A clean narrative may take a backseat in priority to ending the threat and saving lives,” Eduardo had told Gar, “but it is _still there_ in the backseat.”

“Also, Miss M’s in the backseat,” Bart had added, pointing at M’gann in the pilot chair. “See, there she is! We gotta let her do something!”

Eduardo had rolled his eyes, though with a smile, and M’gann got the impression Bart had picked up on exactly what Ed was implying, and had just chosen to not leave it subtle.

Aside from helping with the transmitters, M’gann had also been able to make herself useful in bringing trees down to barricade affected animals from the civilians coming towards them—both the ones with guns and the ones screaming and fighting to wrestle the guns from the others’ hands. She’d relayed their presence to the Outsiders so the Outsiders could make their report to the authorities.

Unfortunately, Luthor’s presence in one video’s comments doesn’t escape her notice.

> _@reallexluthor: “In midst of media mayhem, Meta Morons don’t know Bears are Bears. #sad”_

M’gann’s eyes roll from her laptop to her phone, with her text log to Gar still open on screen. He’s someone whose opinion on the matter she’d much rather read, and she takes a moment to scroll back up through the texts and refresh herself on the conversation.

> **11:47pm : i mean it’s cool that they care, i mean i WANT them to care, but i TOLD them those were NOT metas, they were legit animals!!!**
> 
> 11:48pm : I think people right now have “metagene trouble” more in their frame of reference for understanding strange phenomena than “disembodied scientist mutates wild animals with super serum,” I’m afraid.
> 
> **11:48pm: i mean when i turn into a bear right in front of them and say I KNOW what a real bear smells like**
> 
> 11:50pm: …you show them a metahuman CAN turn into a bear?
> 
> **11:51pm : ……………………………………i mean i’m a Green Bear which is Totally Different but**
> 
> **11:51pm : gosh where were you when I was making metahuman activism look like a joke**
> 
> 11:52pm : Waiting for you in the Bioship at the rendezvous point
> 
> **11:53pm : ……You could tell I was being sarcastic right?**
> 
> **11:53pm : you just can’t win sis**
> 
> **11:54pm : Sorry.**
> 
> 11:56pm: :) <3 The DNA tests proved you were right at least
> 
> 11:56pm: and maybe the protestors ended up looking silly but
> 
> 11:56pm: personally I think looking silly because you care is better than not caring at all
> 
> **11:58pm: I know but it’s about The Optics (tm) sis**
> 
> **11:59pm: and they saw the collars**
> 
> **11:59pm: and ppl already see “weird thing + collar” and think meta, which… kinda sucks**
> 
> 12:01pm: It’s a tricky balance between trying convince people metas can use the collars if they need them and trying to advocate that no meta deserves to be collared against their will, I know
> 
> 12:01pm : *trying to convince
> 
> 12:03pm : I think we’ll find better solutions to the collars someday soon but we had to start somewhere, right?
> 
> 12:04pm: Stay whelmed?
> 
> **12:05pm: Whelmed, traught, crash, all aster no dis**
> 
> **12:05pm: Except uhhhh that one little dis**
> 
> **12:06pm: You seen it?**
> 
> 12:09pm: That’s my “dis” to worry about. Let’s call it, oh, a “sis dis.”
> 
> **12:09pm: Thanks I hate it**
> 
> **12:10pm : but seriously you guys couldn’t, idk, hold it in??**
> 
> 12:11pm: Well you see Gar, there can be times when adults in certain kinds of relationships like mine and Conner’s have certain feelings…
> 
> **12:12pm: OKAY noted thx sis good talk love u BYE**

M’gann locks her screen, flips her phone face down on her desk, and sighs. On the bulletin board to her right, the “See Something, Scream Something” poster displays Gar’s face furless and firm, his finger pointed squarely at the viewer—in this case, her. Not only has Gar grown to be more like a regular teenager, he’s grown to be more like a regular little brother. It’s for the best for both of them, she thinks: the more people who love her that are willing to call her out on her decisions, the better.

For aside from having been the first Team-Outsiders team-up since the Markovia mission, and despite them now being on separate teams, it, _somehow_ , had managed to be the first mission in months that M’gann and Conner had been able to spend together. They’d had different tasks, of course. But after disabling the transmitters, M’gann’s designated role as backup meant she had a front row seat to the Outsiders wrangling and freeing the animals, and she had to admit, if she had to simply be spectator to Conner in action, she much preferred being there live over watching the highlights later on TV.

But once the action was over and word was given that police and press were on the way, she had been content to sneak back to the Bioship. She hadn’t _expected_ Conner to hop into the treetops, find her by her camouflaged waist, and swing her into a kiss. Maybe it was some vague nostalgia for when they fought the Brain as teens displacing her sense of responsibility, maybe it was an amusing but uninvolving mission making that kiss the first real shot of adrenaline she’d felt all afternoon; maybe it was how recently their engagement had been reaffirmed, maybe it was how uncharacteristic a gesture it was from Conner—

 _[You know we used to at least wait until after the debrief,]_ she’d teased, sliding her hand back down from his cheek but keeping her lips pressed to his.

Conner had breathed a small laugh into the kiss as they slowly disconnected. _[Maybe it’s time for some new traditions.]_

Maybe blaming any one emotion was pointless now, because the fact of the matter was this: she’d dropped her camo.

Several hours later, Tommi Thompkins had uploaded to Flitter the last sixteen seconds before the crashing of her drone made the Eyespasm stream cut out, apparently at Gaby’s insistence that there was “definitely something there.”

Conner had caught it first—and his expression had taken as sharp a dive as the camera angle. The view fell to grass then cut to black without M’gann getting what the big deal was, but on the second loop, she saw the white. From there it was easy to fill in the details on subsequent loops: Conner’s dark-sleeved arm certainly moving around _something_ that suddenly appears—blue—the moment he “touches” it, a white blur suddenly blocking his face from view like a delayed censoring of the footage before another—smaller, attached to something else like a black-clothed arm but thinner than Conner’s—moves to where his face should be. If not for her skin, maybe the colors of their uniforms could have blended together with the camera’s motion, but even to an eye not inclined to fill a person into those shapes, the flashes of white are unmistakable.

Seeing it, all she had felt at first was a flutter in her chest, one very pronounced, but very simple, announcing an emotion she couldn’t quite name. Strangely enough, it had taken Conner apologizing for kissing her for the sight of Miss Martian on camera to click in her mind as a problem.

Especially with Conner at her side, on-camera and off, cozied up with her on the couch for what was meant to be a leisurely after-dinner scroll on her laptop.

 _[Hey, I had a hand in this, too!]_ M’gann had insisted, rubbing Conner’s shoulder as he started skimming through the comment section, worry lines forming in his brow. _[And… several other body parts, clearly. Well, not **too** clearly, but…]_

Nothing had seemed too concerning yet, but the potential gravity of the situation had slowly sunk in over the course of the night. When M’gann’s phone had let out a harsh buzz against the surface of the nightstand to announce a message from Artemis, it did so nudging both her and Conner out of already very light sleeps.

> **3:26am : I never thought it would come to this, M’gann, but you’ve brought this on yourself.**
> 
> 3:29am: What?
> 
> **3:31am: *deep breath* CONNER AND MEG-AN SITTIN’ IN A TREE**
> 
> **3:31am: K-I-S-S-I-N-G**
> 
> **3:32am: FIRST COMES LOVE, THEN COMES MARRIAGE, THEN COMES actually can you guys even reproduce?? have you tried? asking for a friend (me, your friend)**
> 
> 3:34am: …Neither of us was sitting.
> 
> **3:35am: Well try it standing up then I don’t know!**
> 
> **3:36am: Or wait**
> 
> **3:37am: Never mind**
> 
> **3:38am: Anyway thank you Conner, now make sure M’gann sees this when she wakes up, it’s very important**

She'd laughed to herself, thinking how lucky she would be to have Conner rub off on her that much. _[What’s so funny?]_ Conner had asked, catching her expression as he’d rolled over to face her just as she was shutting off her screen.

_[Oh, just Artemis needing to go the heck to sleep.]_

The most serious replies to the Newsgirl Legion’s post now, a day later, are still just those offering condolences for Tommi’s busted equipment. M’gann scrolls coolly through several zoomed-in images of anime characters, politicians (but thankfully _not_ Lex), Illuminati symbols, and Bigfoot edited into the white blur of where her head had been. Some replies are from people who seemed to have missed the original stream, as they voice doubt that even _Superboy_ is visible in the clip, much less anyone or anything else. Aside from a heated tangential discussion on whether Bigfoot is potentially a metahuman, whether it’s socially appropriate to ask such a question, and whether the propriety of such a question even matters when Bigfoot’s alleged appearance in Yellowstone some years back remains debatable, everyone seems to be taking the clip as a blip of discoloration on digital footage at the moment of hardware death, and taking the idea of it actually being significant as a _joke_.

It’s a perfect barrier of internet irony and apathy to keep Luthor at bay, as far as M’gann can tell. Even if he recognized her in the clip and tried to accuse the Outsiders of hiding a member, no one would take _him_ seriously for taking _it_ so seriously. Godfrey would have a lot less to lose— _his_ reputation as political commentator already positioned him as ridiculous and shameless, and his brand _had_ its audience—but he’d been absent during GBS’s coverage of the Markovia incident and all the events that had swirled around it. Protests from his fans pushed GBS to reveal his sudden resignation, and since then, radio silence.

M’gann can’t read minds through television, but she nonetheless can tell GBS’s other reporters don’t miss their former co-worker, and she can’t say she’s not grateful Godfrey never got the chance to tear into Forager as Earth’s newest publicly known alien. Nor is she disappointed in any way other than in sympathy for Conner that he never got his chance to appear on Godfrey’s show—a desire based purely in wanting “a shot at taking the guy down a peg with good ol’ truth and justice,” he’s assured her.

Still, Godfrey’s sudden disappearance from public life entirely _is_ mysterious, especially for how it coincided with the disappearance of Gretchen Goode—Granny Goodness—after Vic’s video of her two selves fusing into one exposed her to the world as an alien intruder, something Goode World Studios couldn’t keep decrying once its figurehead could no longer be reached for comment. M’gann suspects Jeff will have the Team investigating Godfrey’s absence soon enough.

A chill runs up M’gann’s spine as she hopes to herself she can still be _on_ the Team when that time comes.

A knock at the door snaps her back into focusing on her _job_ , or at least, the one that is distinctly Megan Morse’s, and after a glance at the time, she closes her laptop.

“Come on in!”

Harper Row files in silently, one hand clenched around her phone and the other balled into a fist at her side. She drops down onto the couch with crossed arms, stomps her feet flat onto the floor and leaves them there. M’gann scoots her chair out from behind her desk to sit across from her, nodding and smiling a greeting.

Harper locks eyes with M’gann and gives her jacket a harsh flap over her shoulders, letting it fall back loosely to keep the straps of her top visible.

“First things first: I’m not here for _that_.”

“If there’s something you want me to see, you can show me, but otherwise I won’t _inspect_ you,” M’gann assures her, folding her hands in her lap. “Things are still going okay in your foster home?”

Harper nods firmly, eyes still digging into M’gann’s.

“That’s good to hear. Please let me know if that changes.” Not wanting to make Harper feel dissuaded from _or_ limited to talking to her social worker, M’gann decides to leave it at that. “Right now, we can just talk about whatever you’d like.”

“ _Oh_ , we _need_ to talk.” Harper rocks straight back onto her feet from the couch, eyes on her phone now as she jabs her passcode into her screen. The next moment, that screen nearly misses making direct contact with M’gann’s nose, and M’gann jumps a little in place, puts a palm out to indicate it’s close enough for her to see.

What’s there is the same footage that’s been playing endlessly before M’gann’s eyes and in her mind for the past twenty-four hours, only cropped down from sixteen seconds to the most relevant two. By now she could recite it: Conner lands on the limb beside her, his arm curls out in front of him, her body manifests in his arms, her hand moves to his cheek. No lurch into the grass, no glitch lines across the screen, no cut to black—no reprieve from the truth.

M’gann feels the color drain from her face. She can only hope the sensation is not so literal. As it stands, what seems to be a .GIF loops almost ten times before she remembers to blink.

Her eyes find their way down to her lap to confirm that she still has Megan Morse’s hands just as Harper’s free hand goes to her hip.

“He’s cheating on you.”

M’gann blinks at Harper for a moment before the biggest laugh of combined shock and relief she’s ever felt in her _life_ jumps to the top of her throat, and she fights to choke it back down, pressing her fist against her mouth and coughing as a round of giggles tries to escape through her nose instead. She reaches for the mug at the end of her desk but knows bringing it to her lips would just send its contents sputtering everywhere, so instead she just holds it in her lap, gripping its handle as she tries to get a grip on herself. By the time she can speak again, her eyes are watering.

“ _I’m_ … I’m not sure I understand.”

Harper looks down at M’gann with concern, grave and earnest, and M’gann can’t help but feel a little guilty that her immediate reaction was to laugh. That concern shifts quickly into pity and then sheer impatience, though, as Harper points to the figures on her screen. “That’s him, right? _That’s_ your fiancé.”

Conner hadn’t exactly gone on national television and declared himself “The Superboy But Also Conner Kent of Happy Harbor, Rhode Island,” but Harper wasn’t the first Happy Harbor local to piece Superboy’s identity together from the available clues of them very obviously being the exact same person. So far, all that had meant were some amusing phone calls from Wendy and Marvin, and Conner’s last three customers all wanting pictures _with_ him and _of_ him lifting their bikes up with one hand.

Remarkably, the issue of Conner’s not-so-secret identity had yet to touch _her_ professional life, though she had chalked that up to her own virtue in not investing herself in high school gossip. And she would prefer to keep it that way as long as practically possible.

“It’s a very blurry image,” M’gann says simply.

Harper scoffs. “ _C’mon_. That’s him.” Her weight shifts anxiously from foot to foot. “There’s _no way_ you haven’t seen this by now.”

“Okay, you got me.” M’gann leans back in her chair and crosses her legs at the ankles, smiling as she thumbs idly at her mug. “That was taken from one of the Newgirl Legion’s posts yesterday, right? Have you seen the memes? On the original post, there are some very clever memes in the replies.”

 _Along with a substantial number of people who are certain there’s nothing there_ , M’gann thinks with teeth gritted behind a closed smile, and with mental fingers crossed that Harper hadn’t tuned in to the livestream.

“You actually _look_ at Flitter replies? _Don’t_ , oh my god, they—”

Harper pauses, her eyes widening with the same bewilderment M’gann notices every person under the age of twenty experiences at realizing any person over the age of twenty knows what a “meme” is.

A disarming tactic, cheap but effective.

Harper shakes it off quickly though, huffing through her nose and dropping back down to the couch. “Okay, fine. Whatever. Let’s do it the hard way. _Is_ your fiancé, in fact…” She preps her hands for air quotes. “…‘Superboy’?”

M’gann presses her lips together as she ponders the most appropriate answer to that question. Conner _hadn’t_ , after all, _gone on national television and declared himself “The Superboy But Also Conner Kent of Happy Harbor, Rhode Island_ ”—but at the same time, he’d answered yes to the question of if he _was_ Superboy every time she’d seen or heard him asked. But each time, it was a decision he was there to make for himself. Were he in the room now, she’d at least send a glance in his direction to gauge his reaction, if not ask him directly over the link.

…And no version of that scenario plays out in any way in her mind other than him A) shrugging and letting her make the call, or B) immediately saying yes.

“…Yes.”

“Then _hel-lo, Megan_ —”

“Uh-uh! _Miss_ Megan.”

“Oh, uh, sorry,” Harper says, blinking in surprise. “I just meant it like that one show Garfield Logan’s mom was on.”

Starting work at a high school just as _Hello, Megan!_ became available for streaming alongside _Space Trek 3016_ on the Goode Goggles had meant M’gann needing to become vigilant. One thousand teenagers primed to make _the_ joke and each think they’re the first—she’s lucky her own “Hel- _lo_ , Megan!” habit had tapered off years ago, else she let one slip with a student and forfeit all their attention for the rest of the conversation.

Now if she only hadn’t let something _else_ slip instead.

A corner of Harper’s mouth curls up smugly in M’gann’s momentary silence. “But see, the fact that it took you _that long_ to answer? It’s _so_ _obvious_ that something’s up.” She crosses her arms again, this time in a victory pose, tilting chest and chin up proudly. “And I _knew_ you weren’t dating Mr. Carr.”

“W- _wait_ —“ _Wait yourself_ , M’gann thinks to herself as she jolts in her chair, feeling her cheeks flare. Before, she had to stifle a laugh. Now, she forces one as seamlessly as possible into her voice. “Where did you get that I was in a relationship with Mr. Carr?”

“Eh, people see you guys come and go in the same, uh, _car_ , and I heard you _live_ together…?”

“We rent the _mother-in-law apartment_ on his property,” M’gann responds. “T-that is, _Conner_ and I, _uh_ , Superboy— _we_ rent from _Mr. Carr_.” She’s tiptoeing the line between relating and oversharing _at best_ , she knows. “Not… that it matters. That just goes to show, though, how schoolyard rumors can fly, doesn’t it? A carpool’s not a _dating_ pool, necessarily.”

“Wait, you didn’t know? I kinda thought you just put that countdown up on your door to when your name changes to ‘Megan Kent’ to make a point.”

“ _Actually_ , I just… don’t want there to be any confusion when I _do_ finally get my new nameplate, that’s all.” And after a month of uncertainty over whether the engagement was still on—or if it ever should have been—M’gann _may_ have gotten carried away in venting her relief. The glitter _had_ gotten a bit messy; more seems to shake out of her every time she shifts her clothes. Any _truly_ invested party could probably trace her back from Yellowstone based on glitter alone. “But _Harper,_ you realize _you’re_ _my_ student, not _my_ _counselor_. There’s no need for you to be so… _interested_ in what’s going on in _my_ relationships.”

“Bull _shit_. I counted. Your wedding’s in _July_. That’s _summer break,_ Miss Megan. _I’m_ not the one making it a big deal.” Harper leans back against the couch as if to await M’gann’s next move, but the moment her back hits the cushion, something makes her frown deeply, almost cringe. “Plus there’s…” She gestures to the mug in M’gann’s hands. “ _That_.”

M’gann glances down at her mug, and at the words “Does This Ring Make Me Look Engaged?” emblazoned across the front of it in metallic gold cursive next to an image of an engagement ring with a cartoonishly-oversized diamond. A re-gift from Raquel—“payback,” according to her, for making no attempt to catch the bouquet at _her_ wedding two years ago. Artemis had had “an excuse,” but M’gann at the time was just being “a downer, and for what?”—in reference to how things had ultimately ended up.

The strawberry-flavored water in the mug is non-alcoholic, of course, but M’gann takes a shot of confidence nonetheless, downs the whole cup and gives a shallow sigh of refreshment to push down the deeper sigh wanting to shove at her shoulders. “…This was a gift.”

Harper scoots even further back into the couch, bringing one heel up to dig into the edge of the seat. “…Aren’t you going to write me up for ‘language’?”

“When a student comes in here, all I want is for them to be honest with me about what’s on their mind.” M’gann mimes zipping her mouth shut only to roll her eyes coyly and unzip it back open. “If _you_ don’t tell on _me_ for not disciplining you, then _I_ won’t have to punish _you_ for being—heaven forbid—a sixteen-year-old that knows how to swear.”

“Just don’t say ‘Hello, Megan,’” Harper says incredulously.

“ _Please_.”

Harper stares at M’gann for a moment and then drops her head into her hands, pressing her phone and its now solid black screen against her head in the process. She knots her fingers in the edges of her hair and groans.

M’gann sets her mug back on her desk and leans all the way forward in her seat, doing her best to peer up at Harper’s hidden face. “ _That’s_ not the kind of reaction I was expecting. What’s bothering you about what I just said?”

“Just that you’re _too_ _fucking_ _cool_ for this.”

“‘This’?”

Once again, M’gann finds herself recoiling back from the screen being thrust towards her, though with Harper having neglected to check it, this time there’s nothing to see, except her own obscure reflection—which perhaps is not much different than what the screen had shown before. Regardless, M’gann instead notes the new flush of fury Harper’s face has taken on under dark makeup and freckles, as well as the visible stinging in her eyes.

“Harper, I mean it.” M’gann rolls her chair back to put more space between them, and her voice takes on a last-resort firmness that never sits well on her tongue afterward. “This isn’t something you need to worry about. And you’re reading a _whole lot_ into one very tiny piece of footage. There’s _so much more_ to this situation that I don’t think you understand—in fact, I _know_ you don’t. There’s _no way_ that you could.”

 _We haven’t let you_ , she adds in her mind, and the apology tucked discreetly into her tone is solely for her own benefit. Harper brings her other foot up to the edge of her seat and glowers at M’gann from behind the barrier of her knees.

_[Every time you lie to the people you love, M’gann, you lose a little bit of your soul!]_

_[W-what we were doing, it wasn’t like that—]_

_[I’m sorry, but you can’t be trusted to decide what it **is** and isn’t like.]_

That deeper sigh finally finds its way out of M’gann’s chest. She’s truly tried to take Conner’s words to heart, both the criticism and the apology, but right now, she can’t deny the truth to the former: she’s honestly not sure what this situation is or isn’t like.

But perhaps there’s groundwork laid in the steps the others have already taken.

“I can’t fault you for trying, though.” Her voice eases back into softness. “After all, it must be strange to wake up one day and find out several of your classmates have been holding in these secrets all this time. I’d be watching the Outsiders pretty closely, too, if I were you, trying to stay on top of what else is suddenly going to come to light. I think we’re _all_ trying to navigate this new status quo in our own way.”

Harper lets one foot slide back down to the floor and cocks her head to the side, eyes narrowing as she mentally works out M’gann’s angle. Harper’s proven to be savvy enough at reading situations that M’gann knows it’s not a question of _if_ she detects the attempt at a topic shift, but _what_ she decides to do with it.

“… Yeah, I guess.” Harper brings her other leg down and settles deeper into the crook of her seat—and, most promisingly, she slips her phone into her jacket pocket. “I mean, I kinda guessed Tara was _foreign_ but I didn’t know she was the Markovian _princess_ or that she killed a guy. I _do_ think it sucks that her brother was such a pompous ass about it—‘ _bleh_ you’re a murderer I’m a hero’—like he didn’t just _burn_ their uncle’s _face_ off or whatever.”

Gamma Squad had been assigned the graveyard, not the palace, and yet theirs was not the mission to ultimately yield a corpse. M’gann hadn’t seen Brion’s murder of Baron Bedlam firsthand, but knew from the mission debrief—from Dick’s report and from Violet’s, Tara’s, and, once they’d all been dismissed, even a hint of Conner’s tears—that the act had been even more brutal than Harper seems to have understood it. With a conscious numbness, M’gann files away the information of what it had looked like on television as potentially useful, at least as far as how Gar’s team may need to address it in the future. As far as being proof of how things aren’t always as they appear on camera, though, it’s a potent example M’gann nonetheless can’t share.

“To be honest, I do get _that,_ though,” Harper continues. “Wanting someone like him dead. _Ending it_ for good after all the shit he did to them—the _sperm donor’s_ lucky _I_ never went meta.”

 _Her father_ , M’gann thinks, and she can’t blame Harper for not wanting to honor him as such. _That’s_ not the part that truly needs addressing. “It doesn’t take a metagene to make a murderer,” M’gann responds, keeping her tone as matter-of-fact as possible.

Harper gulps and jolts in place. “I didn’t mean…! Okay, fair, my bad.” She bites her lower lip. “Wait, you can tell I’m joking, right? Because I am _not_ saying—I mean I get it, protection order, he comes near us, I call the cops, okay? Promise, I had _enough_ fun getting arrested last time. I’m not _that_ dumb.” Harper crosses her arms again, but rather than project pride or impatience, she nervously squeezes at her sleeves. “Please don’t put that in my file.”

“It’s _okay_ , Harper,” M’gann says softly, scooting back closer to her. “I can tell you’re just venting. Even that _incident_ on the beach with Violet was just that, I know. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

And just like that, M’gann can’t help but think, _Harper’s_ managed to vent more about Brion’s betrayal than Violet has. In what little time she’s gotten to know Violet—the same little time Violet’s had so far to get to know herself—she’s only known Violet to become so quiet and reserved in what proved to be the midst of an emotional crisis. Whether it’s a tendency she would have developed without Dr. Jace’s influence, they’ll never know, and M’gann knows the blame’s on her—on _all of them_ that were responsible for keeping Violet and the others safe, she reminds herself, pushing aside the dark thought of how she _could have_ vetted Jace instead of falling for the woman’s supposed desire for redemption.

As it stands with Violet, it’s not a side of a _break-up_ —if what happened can even be reduced to that—that M’gann herself has any experience to draw upon: a side that’s innocent.

“About that incident, though…” M’gann starts.

“Oh, and, uh, yeah, Fred Bugg. Forager, alien,” Harper interjects quickly. “Forager’s cool. Honestly, if I’d had to guess someone I already knew was an alien, I would’ve guessed Fred anyway.”

“…Interesting.” M’gann reaches for her empty cup to feign another sip, granting herself and Harper a conversational pause. Harper’s lower lip stays pinned under her teeth.

The mug knocks gently against the surface of M’gann’s desk as she sets it back down. Harper eyes it like a gavel.

“How _have_ things been with Violet since your… _bonding experience_ on the beach, so to speak?”

“ _Say_ , did you _already_ _know_ your fiancé was a _Superman clone_ that _Lex Luthor_ made in a _lab_ , or did _you_ just turn the news on one night and go ‘ _holy shit!_ ’?”

“Harper…” Maybe _has_ watched too much _Hello, Megan!_ for how in seeking a distraction, her voice seems to play to an imaginary laugh track. _Of course_ , M’gann acknowledges to herself, that assessment might just be based in how much the question makes _her_ want to laugh. “Yes. I knew.”

“Oh, cool, cool,” Harper responds, nodding. “Wait, really?”

M’gann snorts a little and decides to indulge herself. She holds out her left hand for Harper to inspect, pointing directly at her ring its shield-shaped diamond as Harper leans in, curiosity piqued. “Does _this_ ring make me look engaged to _Superboy_?”

Harper lets out a sputtering laugh. “Oh, holy shit.”

“Conner’s not really one for secrets, _believe me_.”

“Then who is it?”

M’gann folds her hands back into her lap and threads her fingers together, crinkles her nose. “You’re… not letting that go, are you?”

“Doesn’t look like Wonder Girl.”

“ _Cassie_ —” M’gann pauses and gulps, then reminds herself that Wonder Girl’s name is now something anyone could know as a civilian if they cared enough to commit it to memory—which is still perhaps not the best impression of herself to give Harper, given the circumstances, but is perfectly salvageable, given that: “Cassie is a minor.”

“Doesn’t stop the internet,” Harper responds, shrugging.

“Didn’t we _already_ establish how rumors can be unreliable?” M’gann says, crossing her legs at the knees. “Also, I seem to recall there’s a question _you_ left hanging.”

“…Look, does it matter? I thought we were talking about the Outsiders. Violet’s not an Outsider! She’s just…” Harper looks off to the side. “Friends with them. Just friends.”

“It’s true Violet’s not one of the Outsiders, but she _is_ _your_ friend. Or… am I…” M’gann slows as she watches Harper’s eyes start to pinball anxiously around the room. “…Making assumptions?”

“After I made her get drunk, kiss me, and get caught with Da— _his_ gun?” Harper’s eyes settle on her shoes, and she pushes a heavy sigh out through pursed lips. “Yeah, you’re assuming she’s _dumb enough_ to want anything else to _do_ with me.” Harper’s hand goes to the back of her neck as she looks up at M’gann wincingly. “You, uh… probably figured out that _wasn’t_ ‘Violet’s gun.’”

“I did. I assumed you had your reasons for lying, though. People usually do.”

Harper rolls her eyes at the sympathy, unable to know the sentiment is not meant just towards her.

“But this _is_ the first I’ve heard about a… kiss?” M’gann then says, and it’s the truth.

Harper lets out a low and bitter laugh. “Then I guess if you get me to talk about it, it’s two birds with one stone, right?”

“Not that I don’t appreciate the offer to make my job easier, but…” Evaluating the information at first blush, its relevancy to Violet beyond how it might still weigh on her conscience seems ambiguous at best, and as for Harper, it’s clearly a sore spot. “We could just consider it ‘noted,’ and move on, if you prefer.”

“There’s nothing _to_ note. She has a boyfriend. So did I.”

“…Past tense?”

“We split!” Harper throws her hands up in the air with sardonic cheer. “I did the honors. It was my fault anyway. I think he wants to stay friends but—” A scoff. “ _I_ don’t. And he shouldn’t wanna be. Screw that ‘I was going through a rough time’ excuse.”

“That’s…” A side of a breakup she has much more experience with, M’gann thinks as her mouth hangs open, though with _that_ experience comes bias. “…Up to you _and_ him where you want to take things from here, but—“

“And Violet just looks, I don’t know, _sad_ lately,” Harper continues, and M’gann closes her mouth. “I don’t know, I probably broke _them_ up, too.”

Harper slouches forward, rocking herself lightly as her legs curl against each other at the ankles and hug the edge of her seat. “I kinda just… haven’t been talking to her, or him, or like… anybody,” she says with a voice suddenly small and listless. A thought then jerks at the corner of her frown. “…Except Forager because Forager doesn’t give up and doesn’t _shut_ up.”

“And suddenly _Miss Megan’s_ problems seem a lot easier and a lot more _appealing_ to have to deal with, don’t they.”

“You admit there’s a problem.” Harper perks up as she points a _gotcha_ at M’gann then drops back against the back of the couch, slings her arms out across the top of it and props a foot up on a knee. “Good! That’s the first step. Step two, you dump him.”

“I’m… only trying to help you articulate what’s going on, based on what you’ve told me.”

“Oh, let me guess, you think I’m _projecting_ or something.”

M’gann turns her head to the side and looks at Harper winkingly. “That wouldn’t happen to be an epiphany, would it?”

“Nope!” Harper exclaims, and her phone reappears from her pocket, her eyes and thumb going straight to work on unlocking her screen again.

“B-before we get back to that, can I just say this? You _can talk_ to Violet. _I_ can’t speak _for_ her but I can’t _imagine_ she resents you for anything that happened—but, you know, there’s only one way to find out. And right now, I do know that she’s feeling alone in her own way, too. If you’re avoiding her because you think it’s what _you_ deserve, at least think about this: does _she_ deserve not having another friend just because _you_ don’t want to forgive yourself?”

Harper’s hand falls to her lap as her expression turns decidedly, outwardly neutral. Her thumb hovers motionless over her screen, now illuminated and blinking with repetitions of the two-second clip. The analog clock hanging high over Harper’s head ticks away several minutes of what would otherwise be silence, and M’gann can’t help but eye it with displeasure, wishing it wouldn’t rush Harper into a response and contemplating the most subtle way to stop its motion with her mind.

Soon enough, Harper’s expression does crack, though. She squeezes her eyes shut and scrunches her nose, then rolls them to the ceiling as she opens them, groaning. “ _God_ , do I wanna be wrong about your fiancé!

“You _do_ have a way out of having to worry about it, you know: _listening_ _to me_ when I tell you there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Well, _now_ I just think you already knew and already _forgave_ him, which is actually worse and I’m more mad,” Harper says, oddly matter-of-factly.

“ _Harper_ …” M’gann says, exasperation seeping out into her voice despite a determined smile.

“ _Miss Megan_ …” Harper responds, half-mocking M’gann’s tone with a smile that trusts M’gann not to take it too seriously. She then drops that smile. “Just… be honest, Miss Megan. Do you _really think_ I’m crazy for thinking that looks like your fiancé making out with somebody in a tree and not, IDK, a glitch or a glare or… whatever people are saying it is?”

 _Oh no_ , M’gann thinks. Even as clever as she is, Harper may not even realize how well her wording finally forces M’gann into a more straightforward response. “Well, ‘making out’ _might_ be a strong phrase for it, but… no. I don’t think you’re ‘crazy.’ I understand what you’re seeing.”

“Cool, ‘cuz for the record, Gaby thinks so, too, and she’s _waaay_ more into shipping the Outsiders than I’ll ever be.”

“Gaby…” It’s highly unlikely Violet would have ever identified herself to Harper as Gabrielle Daou, so M’gann thumbs through a mental list of other people Harper would expect her to know. “Gabrielli?”

“Yeah, on her personal account,” Harper replies a second before clamping her mouth shut. Her eyes dart away guiltily. “Okay, fine, I guess I _did_ message _her_ last night, so forget that sob story about me not talking to anyone.”

“…Harper, did _you_ make this .GIF?”

“…Maybe.” As determined as she was before to have her screen’s contents seen, Harper now tucks her phone shyly back into her pocket. “But anyway, so, okay, _hypothetically_ … if that _was_ your fiancé, uh, getting _more than friendly_ with someone, _who_ do _you_ think that someone would be? Hypothetically.”

M’gann recognizes _that_ trick. “Well, _hypothetically_ , if that _was_ someone getting ‘more than friendly’ with my fiancé… would _who_ it was really be what mattered in this situation?”

“Uh…” Harper responds, rubbing the back of her head. “Guess not.”

“I’m not saying this to be too judgmental towards you _or_ Gaby, but there _are_ … _healthier_ things to bond over than getting overinvested in other people’s personal lives.”

“Like underage drinking and firearm possession, right, Miss Megan?” Harper says with a wink.

M’gann gives a chuckle through what is otherwise a wince. Dread finally pushes her heart to beat hard enough in her chest that she can no longer ignore the sensation. She’s fortunate, at least, that unlike Conner, Harper can’t hear the anxiety in her pulse, but nevertheless, Harper stares at her now as if watching for proof in every little twitch and blink that she’s not as okay as she’s pretending to be.

M’gann takes a deep breath to calm her nerves. The last thing Harper needs is more evidence for her theory. It helps to note how _familiar_ that expression is, critical but concerned, demanding honesty and action but only for the sake of _good_ , for righting wrongs—she’s seen it on quite a number of faces now, all around Harper’s age, at least at some point.

“For the record, Harper, I don’t really think you’re projecting. I think what this really is… is you trying to look out for me.”

Harper blinks, rolls her eyes, nods her head to the side, and shrugs. It’s the closest she’ll get to confirming it outright. M’gann nods in recognition of her response. Harper scrunches a good two-thirds of her face against her palm and turns her head to hide her blush.

“And I want you to understand that you don’t _owe me_ anything for having helped you,” M’gann continues. “That’s not how this works. _I’m_ doing my job. _You_ don’t need to reciprocate.”

“I’m just…” Harper’s hand falls back to her lap. “Tired of people getting hurt that don’t deserve it.”

“That’s an admirable way to be. But you’ve been Cullen’s hero all this time, and your own. You don’t need to be mine, too.”

The comment earns a soft and sincere smile from Harper, who looks down modestly at her own hands as they curl into fists. She then looks back up at M’gann with the same concern as when she first presented the issue, only with none of the anger or impatience. “There’s _something_ going on that you _really_ don’t wanna talk about, though. And _I_ know how that is. And _yeah_ , I _get it_ , it’s _your_ job not mine, but…”

“There’s…” M’gann pauses to search for the right words, words that honor every responsibility she has: to the Team, the League, the Outsiders, and even herself, but also to Harper and the students of Happy Harbor High—those that aren’t already keeping her secret. Forager, Violet, and Tara may all have their own responsibilities, too, but those come from choices made in response to circumstances that were largely out of anyone’s control. _This_ was _her_ mistake. “There are some things that _might_ happen that I’m not… ready to make happen. Not yet. If they _were_ to happen… well, they might surprise you, they might not, that’s honestly not something I think I can gauge. But either way, looking at the big picture, there’d be guaranteed consequences—some I can predict, some I know I can’t.” Glancing down at her own hands, she can see the shield on her ring glinting white and bright against her skin, and she smiles. “But what I _do_ know for a _fact_ is that Conner has been more… more _faithful_ to me than I—”

_Not now. And **enough**._

“—Than _anyone_ could possibly deserve. Even at my worst moments, he’s always waited for me to finally make the right choice.” M’gann then grabs her mug again, just to have and hold. “I know what you’re seeing, and I know the truth. And I’m asking you to believe me.”

“Ohhh-kay…” Harper says as she slides to the edge of her seat, preparing to stand. “Well, _now_ I have _no_ _clue_ what’s going on, _and_ I kinda just feel weird for prying.”

M’gann smiles. “Why’s that?”

“You... sound like you’re being really, really honest.”

“I try. Try to do more than just sound like it, that is.”

Harper nods awkwardly in recognition of having heard her then shuffles off to leave. M’gann rotates her seat around to wave at her as she gets to the door.

“Take care!”

“Uh, you, too.” With one hand on the doorknob and the other holding her phone, Harper looks down at her screen, back at M’gann, then back at her screen. Her eyes stay fixed on the screen as she walks out the door.

The second the door shuts, M’gann rolls herself back over to her desk, drops her head straight down into her folded arms for a moment of decompression. A deep breath in and out comes tinged with a giggle, in spite of herself. Moment over, she picks up her phone to text Conner—if she’s lucky, he’s still on his lunch break.

> 1:39pm : Imagine my surprise when a certain student of mine dropped by to accuse you of cheating on me, based on some incriminating footage taken at Yellowstone

Sure enough, a reply comes through.

> **1:42pm : What did you do?**
> 
> 1:43pm : Well, I did my best to be honest without… telling her the truth
> 
> 1:43pm: At least… the whole truth
> 
> 1:44pm : I’m not sure I handled it very well
> 
> 1:44pm : She, at the very least, SUSPECTS that there’s some unknown actor working with the Outsiders
> 
> 1:45pm : But I think I’ve at least convinced her not to spark a social media controversy
> 
> 1:46pm : Basically I’ve told her to just… be patient
> 
> 1:46pm : Which… no one likes to hear
> 
> **1:48pm: I know.**
> 
> 1:49pm : :( She can’t have made it that far down the hall yet. Do you think I should call her back and just… tell her everything? Tell her it was me, and who I really am?
> 
> 1:50pm : You know the reasons I haven’t but…
> 
> 1:51pm : So much has changed.

A response doesn’t come right away. M’gann flips anxiously through several media and messaging apps just to busy her hand and mind as she waits. It occurs to her after eleven minutes that needing Conner’s feedback on how to do her _day_ job, at the very least, wouldn’t actually work out.

> **2:02pm : Wouldn’t she have to keep your identity a secret?**
> 
> 2:03pm: I was thinking along those lines myself
> 
> 2:03pm: And what a terrible example that would be
> 
> 2:03pm: When it took her so long to open up about her home life
> 
> 2:05pm: Not to mention the burden it would be on her, the responsibility it would mean she’d have towards me that goes WAY beyond what’s appropriate for me to ask of her
> 
> 2:06pm: I guess actually *listening* to me would be her choice, but
> 
> **2:07pm: If you had told me about the Anti-Light I would have had to make the same choice.**

The phone slips down to the desk as a far less pleasant rush of adrenaline than the one she had gotten from the kiss hits M’gann’s system and her hand goes momentarily limp. She bites her lip and picks the phone back up.

> 2:08pm : When you put it that way, I better start running.
> 
> **2:09pm : That’s not what I meant.**
> 
> **2:10pm : I just mean, I think I get it now.**
> 
> **2:11pm : And when I made a choice for me and the Genomorphs, I didn’t mean to make one for you, too.**
> 
> 2:12pm: Don’t apologize.
> 
> **2:15pm: ...You caught me.**

M’gann smiles at the mental picture of Conner leaning over his phone, tapping out even the simplest of apologies with powerful fingers against a delicate screen but putting the weight of his whole heart into every keystroke nonetheless. She hopes having to then clear away that guilty message came as some relief.

She herself creates then clears away three rows of heart emojis before opting for something more concise.

> 2:16pm : I know you.
> 
> 2:16pm: And I love you.
> 
> 2:17pm : And I think this is something I need to consult with Dinah on
> 
> **2:18pm: It’s up to you.**
> 
> 2:19pm : Because to be honest? I’m starting to get tired of having to be so selectively transparent.
> 
> **2:22pm : Still, maybe not the best time for you to have dropped camo**

M’gann nearly slides right out of her chair. It’s only for the fact that she doesn’t recover from the drop with her seat halfway embedded into her thigh that she can be sure her form didn’t density-shift involuntarily, constituting another slip-up. She types out her response half-whispering and half-giggling Conner’s name at the phone.

> 2:24pm : Ha-ha, very PUNNY.
> 
> **2:25pm : I love you too.**

One heart emoji. Or three. Or two, _two_ —she’ll push Artemis’s joke about her and Conner trying to start a family to the back of her mind, as far as it can go, every time it resurfaces, and maybe start keeping her phone off again at night now that she’s not Team leader. There’s enough to worry about now.

Conner sends two heart emojis back, and soon enough, M’gann’s screen goes black. Just like with Harper’s phone, she’s left with a reflection of herself. She opens her laptop back up to the Newsgirl Legion’s Flitter, and to the video of Superboy and the mysterious but unlikely “something there.” At the tap of her finger against the trackpad, the gray heart below it fills in with red. And after watching and waiting for just the right moment, she screenshots the second she—Miss Martian, regardless of who does or doesn’t know it yet—comes into view.

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: Harper calling her dad “the sperm donor” is inspired by how a friend of mine in high school referred to their abusive dad, reducing him to someone who just happened to have a hand in their conception instead of having to acknowledge him as a actual father, and I used it myself to refer to my own for a while. Its use in this fic is only meant to represent that real-life experience and how someone in Harper’s position might start to process their feelings about having been abused by family. It’s not meant to insult real-life sperm donors or that means of conception, or propose some headcanon on what Harper’s biological parents’ actual relationship was. I think the fic explains the latter, but it didn’t feel quite right to have M’gann address the former, so I thought I should just note it here.


End file.
